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<title>Every Sunday's Getting More Bleak by Lauryn426</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863008">Every Sunday's Getting More Bleak</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauryn426/pseuds/Lauryn426'>Lauryn426</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cry-Baby (1990)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:42:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,332</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauryn426/pseuds/Lauryn426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The ways that Milton's parents and their religion have impacted the Cry-Baby gang.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Allison Vernon-Williams/Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker, Mona 'Hatchet-Face' Malnorowski/Milton Hackett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Every Sunday's Getting More Bleak</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">Wanda</span>
</p><p>Milton’s parents set up a booth at Turkey Point, exactly where they weren’t welcome, as they did whenever they could. Wanda just rolls her eyes as they start their spiel of their poor son who was so misguided and if he could just find the way of their Lord. She manages to tune it out though, that is until they disgustedly spit at the clothes Milton’s wearing, the same style they’re all wearing, for ‘looking like they were designed by homosexuals’. The vitriol makes her flinch, ashamed of herself, of her hidden homosexual desires. And then the panic grips her, quick and sharp and what if they know? If they know about her, if they told anyone, her life would be over. She’d be out of the gang, she’s sure of it because why would they want a lesbian hanging around them? Wanda shook her head - there’s no way they could know, no way anyone could know - she’s never acted on her desires, and it’s not like they’re mind readers. Later, when Lenora prances up to Cry Baby in a bikini, Wanda makes sure that her eyes don’t linger beyond a scathing look at her, even if she does look damn good in that bikini. She can dream though, of what could happen if she could be herself and if it was okay to be gay, and she can hope for a world where shouting bigots likes Milton’s parents don’t exist.</p><p>
  <span class="u">Milton</span>
</p><p>Milton loved his parents, don’t get him wrong but, Jesus if they don’t make it hard. They don’t like his friends, or his clothes, or the music he listened to, and sometimes he feels like they don’t like him. And if they do, he felt like their religion comes before he does. It feels like all his parents do is tell him to repent, to save his soul, to find their saviour, to fit into the little box detailing exactly how he should behave, who his friends are, what music he listens to, everything. God, they don’t get it, how hard it is to grow up being raised to meet impossible standards, and being told to pray when he can’t reach them. It’s like they don’t know how they could’ve gone wrong, how they could’ve raised him anymore faithfully than they did, but they don’t see that was the problem. His parents always told him God was the answer if he prays he’ll get what he wants and it didn’t take him long to figure out that they were wrong. God didn’t appear to help him make friends when he was younger and didn’t help him when he felt like he was gonna die when he got his appendix out. They don’t understand how difficult it was for him to find himself, to figure out who he is, without the influence of their God and their fear and love for Him hanging over him all the time. But he’d done it - he’d found his own friends, found a niche he belonged in, where he feels loved and like he belongs. Where his friends can feel like they can belong in the world, the same way he does now.</p><p>
  <span class="u">Hatchet-Face</span>
</p><p>Mr and Mrs Hackett are always causing trouble for her. They don’t like that she’s Milton’s girlfriend, they think she’s corrupting their precious son, that she’s sullying him. Hatchet-Face doesn’t think they could be more wrong if they tried. They shout out to anyone who’ll hear them that their son has lost faith, that he’s lost their Lord, how he can still be saved, how they all can. They’re wrong. Milton has lost faith, he’s found it. His parents don’t understand him, but she does. She knows that the faith he’s found is in something a little more earthly than their God. Milton’s found faith in their family, their gang. He’s found faith in her and she can tell from the way he looks at her like she’s hung the moon, the way his eyes are always looking for her, and the way they soften when they find her. Even in the way he treats her - not like other guys treat their girlfriends because that’s not them. He doesn’t treat her like she needs to be protected or like she doesn’t know what she’s doing; he treats her like a person that can make her own decisions. Hatchet-Face doesn’t envy girls whose boyfriends treat them like a fragile object like Allison’s boyfriend does. Milton is perfect, Hatchet-Face knows, but not for everybody, not for anyone else, just for them. She knows from the way they join together after a long day, the way they dance in perfect rhythm, and the way that they tangle in each other at the end of the night.</p><p>
  <span class="u">Cry-Baby</span>
</p><p>Cry-Baby wasn’t religious, not at all. He’s never been to a church or any place of worship, but that’s not to say he doesn’t know how to worship. He knows how to worship his Queen, his gang, his friends. He knows how to help them get what they need, knows when they need a comforting word or companionable silence. Maybe this isn’t worship the way it should be done, isn’t the way others think of worship but it’s his way. Cry-Baby doesn’t need to worship a God, doesn’t need anything more than what he’s got. He can’t imagine how Milton survived until he found them, with his parents and their almost fanatical beliefs. He can almost hear them saying that his way of worship is wrong, is sacrilegious, but to him, that’s fine. He doesn’t need to line up with their religion, their morals, their expectations to be happy or feel fulfilled, or whatever the reason they believe it is. He’s more than fine to scandalise them for his family, because what do they matter to him anyway?</p><p>
  <span class="u">Pepper</span>
</p><p>Pepper isn’t blind to the looks she gets when she’s on her own, and even when she’s with the gang. People stare at her, and she can almost hear them thinking about how she’s so young to be pregnant, and gasping about how her ring finger was bare. It’s worse when she’s with her kids because people usually put together how young she was when she first got pregnant. Maybe it’s a little spiteful or petty but it doesn’t stop her waiting for the day she traumatises some old broad so much they faint because honestly, they’re acting like they’ve never had sex or been pregnant when they’ve got kids wandering around somewhere, just like her. But the worst of a bad bunch are Mr and Mrs Hackett who always seem to be spouting their book at her. They always catch her when she walks alone and tell her that she was wrong, that her children are wrong because she’d had premarital sex and she’d sinned. How dare these people tell her that her children are going to a hell she doesn’t even believe in? It disgusts her, the way they talk to people with their holier-than-thou attitude. They were lucky that Milton loves them because they just make her so angry, it was a wonder that she hadn’t lost it at them. All good things come to an end, though, and Pepper’s ability to ignore them snapped one day when she was walking through town with the gang. They always went for her children, almost baiting her with their projected future for them, but that time it was one comment too far. She didn’t really remember what happened, but Cry-Baby and Milton had needed to pull her away from them. It can’t have been anything bad - anything bad for her anyway - because the couple always silence their preaching when they see her and don’t continue until they’re sure she’s gone. If Pepper were cruel, she might make it a point to smugly strut around the usual places the couple set up their booth, but she reminds herself that these are Milton’s parents, and he loves them.</p>
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